Portsmouth--Ryde--Cowes--Yarmouth
It is not too much to say that the approach to Portsmouth by sea from
the east on a fine summer day, with the Isle of Wight rising from
amidst the waste of waters right ahead, looking like a piece of agate
gleaming through the sun-born haze, is one of great beauty.
On such a day, indeed, Selsey Bill, and the low-lying, much-broken
coast which stretches between it and Southsea Castle, with Hayling
Island, in shape like a deformed foot, dividing the entrances to
Chichester and Langstone Harbours, seems almost to melt into the sea
itself.
In the many creeks of these harbours there are picturesque spots well
worth exploring by those who have the time, and for whom the open
sea does not possess greater attractions. Of the inlets indicated,
Bosham is by common consent the most beautiful as well as one of the
most frequented; it can be reached fairly easily, but trouble awaits
those who venture in anything larger than a dinghy up beyond the
creek. In Bosham Reach many a Danish galley has ridden at anchor,
and with the village are linked names great in the dim past ages of
history--Vespasian, Titus, Canute, Harold amongst the number. In the
interesting and ancient church the great Viking’s daughter lies buried,
whilst the bells of Bosham--so the story goes--lie in the fairway hard
by Cubnor Point, sunk there when the Danish pirate ship in which they
had been placed went to the bottom in judgement for the sacrilegious
act. And there were people living not so many decades ago who had
heard, or said they had heard, them ringing when the tide rushed out.
So it will be seen that around this sleepy little town, so far removed
from the more bustling current of modern life, hangs a savour of old
romance. And there are yet folk alive who can yarn of the smuggling
days when Bosham and Chichester Creeks harboured many a bold free
trader, and saw many a good cargo “run.”
As one passes along this bit of much and deeply indented coast,
inland beyond which are the swelling heights of the Portsdown Hills,
green-grey and desolate-looking ridges with almost an unbroken summit
line, crowned and pierced by many suspected and unsuspected forts,
the great naval station for which one is bound climbs up out of the
sea ahead; most pictorial at the distance of half a dozen miles; most
interesting at close quarters.
Behind the serried rows of houses of the “Service” folk, which almost
encircle the matting-like area of Southsea Common, lie vistas of
blue-grey roofs of work-a-day folks’ dwellings, and the huge roof spans
of the building and fitting sheds of the Dockyard; with here and there
masts or some giant crane breaking the sky line above them.
Seen first at sunset, when entering Spithead from the eastward,
the glamour of romance--which noonday sunshine is apt to somewhat
dispel--seems to hang over the great naval station; and the flat
and uninteresting town takes on an element of picturesqueness which
doubtless has tempted artists to paint what would otherwise not be very
paintable. Southsea beach is much favoured in good weather as a place
off which to bring up. But within the harbour--when once its difficult
entrance with the tides running all ways inside, and a perfect crowd of
launches, ferries, and small craft and outgoing vessels to add to one’s
perplexities have been safely threaded--there is good anchorage and
much to see.
There is no busier harbour on the south coast than Portsmouth, for in
it business and pleasure, war and peace, are indissolubly linked. On
the eastern shore is the Naval Dockyard, the steamboat stages, and
most of what commerce comes into the harbour; on the western, chiefly
construction sheds, slips, fitting-out yards, and industries connected
with the pleasure craft which, during the summer months, add such life
and beauty to the Solent and home waters generally.
The harbour itself simply teems with life. Not a moment passes
throughout the hours of daylight that some craft or other--whether
battleship, torpedo boat, destroyer, excursion steamer, yacht, or
trading schooner, barque, brigantine, or rust-red collier--is entering
or leaving it through the narrow jaws between Blockhouse Fort and Point
Battery. A French writer has said “It is the one spot I have seen in
England that impressed me with the tireless activity and sense of the
nation’s naval greatness.” And after a few days spent in the harbour
one realizes the truth of this statement.
If making a lengthy stay one is scarcely likely to find anything
approaching a snug berth nearer Gosport or the Hard than up a little
distance beyond the entrance to Weevil Lake near the Coal Hulks. If
fortunate enough to pick up a mooring buoy here, one is not too far
removed from the life of the harbour, nor has one too long a pull down
to Gosport or Portsmouth Hard.
But now something concerning Portsmouth and its neighbouring town of
Gosport. The name of the latter, a quaint old-fashioned town which
is being slowly but surely absorbed by the Government needs, is
traditionally supposed to have been derived from the words God’s Port,
or the port of safety or deliverance, which was bestowed upon it by
Henry of Blois, Bishop of Winchester, on his landing, A.D. 1158, after
a perilous voyage from the coast of France. There is, however, another
version of its origin, which, whilst stating that it was Henry of
Blois that bestowed the name, gives as the reason the saving of his
brother King Stephen’s life when the vessel in which he was returning
from Normandy was wrecked on the coast near Stokes Bay. Actually, it
would appear more probable that the name is derived from Gorseport,
or the haven among the gorse, with which most of the dry land in the
neighbourhood was formerly covered. There is, however, some authorities
aver, amongst the archives in Winchester Cathedral a deed by which a
grant was made to the inhabitants of the place, enabling them to call
it God’s Port.
One of the most remarkable features connected with the harbour is the
number of villages which grew up on its shores with the names of which
the word “port” became incorporated.
The privilege of holding a market at Gosport was granted to the
village by the Bishop of Winchester, who, however, was not entirely
disinterested in the matter, as he received the tolls of the old
market house. The latter was of wood, and was an interesting building
containing in its upper story some apartments which served as offices
for the bishop’s baronial court. Unfortunately the old place shared
the fate of many other interesting survivals from medieval times in
the neighbourhood, and was pulled down in the year 1811, when a more
commodious market house was erected nearer the shore.
Portsea, which lies to the north of the railway and Portsmouth Harbour
station with Portsea Island, which but for a narrow channel or
waterway would be a peninsula, has for centuries been an interesting
and important portion of the district nowadays known generally as
Portsmouth. Its interest, however, has in the past, as now, been
chiefly of a maritime nature. It does not appear to have had any
very great importance on account of its trade at any period of its
history. But almost from time immemorial fleets have assembled here
before setting forth upon expeditions; and hither they have returned,
often battered, though generally victorious. Here also armies have
foregathered for foreign service, and have returned “from the
Wars.” But Portsea never seems to have ranked with Southampton as a
mercantile port; it has always been more of a naval and military
establishment. Even in ancient times its position must have commended
itself to strategists, for in those days it must have been practically
impregnable, except at one or two points, by reason of the fact that
it was surrounded by water, and the mud and marshland which lay along
its shores rendered landing by an enemy extremely difficult, if not
impossible, and the approach of craft of any size impracticable, except
here and there where the shore was hard, or there was a sandy beach.
Even the Romans appear not to have invaded Portsea Island, for there
are no relics of their occupation discoverable upon it. Its slightly
elevated plateau was, however, admirably adapted for use as a camp and
for the assemblage of armies, and it is doubtless to this fact that
the town largely owed its foundation. In Saxon times it was a Royal
demesne, but ultimately was given by Alfreda, Queen of Ethelred, and,
strange as this may appear, aunt and military teacher of Alfred the
Great, to the church at Winchester.
At the suppression of the religious foundations in the reign of Henry
VIII it was given to the College of Winchester, into whose possession
the greater portion of the land on which Portsea was built, as well as
the advowsons of the churches on the island, passed.
Since then, as every one knows, it has become one of the most important
sections of the naval and military Portsmouth of to-day.
The mere mention of the latter town, with its many and crowded
memories of the past, seems to bear with it a taste of salt air and
the invigorating quality of a sea breeze, and there seems little doubt
but that the Danes harried Portsmouth on several occasions, as they
did most south coast towns of any consequence. And it is also equally
probable that it was here that some at least of the galleys with which
Alfred the Great formed the nucleus of the English navy were built, and
that they sallied forth through the narrow harbour mouth to inflict
the crushing defeat upon the marauders in the Solent, which constituted
one of the most important of the many naval battles that Alfred fought.
It was near Portsmouth, too, that Harold II’s fleet two centuries later
cruised aimlessly about for some time ere sailing northward with the
object of preventing the landing of William of Normandy, which took
place eastward further up the coast; and it was here, in 1139, that
Matilda, daughter of Henry I, landed with a handful of knights, and a
few serving men, to attempt to win the English throne; and Portsmouth
was also the place of departure for Richard Cœur de Lion on his final
expedition to the Holy Land.
Indeed, almost every foot of ground upon which the older portion of
the town now stands is pregnant with historic events, and memories of
the England of the past which, from the dim ages when Portsmouth began
to take shape, has been ever great, upon the narrow and wider seas,
save for a short period in the reign of that pleasure-loving monarch,
Charles II, when the Dutch swept the Channel.
As one walks its streets memories come to one of the innumerable
gallant men--many unsung in ballad and unrecorded in the pages of
history, though deserving both honours--who during the past centuries
have set forth boldly upon enterprises for the preservation of
Britain’s empire of the sea and the maintenance of her honour and glory
afloat.
There is the famous “Hard.” Who that has read Marryat’s _Peter Simple_
does not know it, and cannot in his mind’s eye conjure up the picture
of the famous place with the pig-tailed “salts” who frequented it in
Nelson’s, and Howe’s, and Rodney’s times?
Mudie, in his _History of Hampshire_, though doing scant justice to
the interest and story of Portsmouth, gives a fairly vivid sketch of
the famous “Hard” about this period. He writes: “Immediately beyond
the gun wharves there is an opening, with the buildings of Portsea
on the other side. This is the Common’s Hard, and it and the row
(houses) opposite are much devoted to the sale of frippery, so that
this is neither the most cleanly nor the most moral spot in England.
It is,” he goes on to say, “the great landing-place from the ships in
the harbour--at least, for the common sailors and those who keep up
intercourse with them.... This common Hard displays no very pleasant
scene in times of peace; in war time it must be far worse.”
But even Mudie sees some use in the Hard, though a questionable one,
as he adds, “But as such scenes are inseparable from places where
sailors resort in great numbers, it is probably better to have it thus
concentrated than if it were dispersed all over the town.”
It was not, however, until the reign of King John that the town
appears to have attained any great prominence as a shipbuilding port;
but during the reign of that monarch, and ever afterwards, there are
frequent mentions of it, as such, in the Records. About the same time
as the commencement of shipbuilding at Portsmouth we find an account of
the assembly by Henry III in 1229 of a great army for his French war
in Poitou, undertaken in order that he might recover the possessions
which John had lost. The naval preparations for the campaign, however,
seem to have been inadequate, as we find the “assemblage of men so
great that they were with but difficulty numbered,” but they had to
be disbanded for lack of both stores and transport across seas. Here,
too (or, to be exact, upon what is known as Southsea Common, nowadays
the resort of ogling nursemaids and children when not used for drill),
Edward III in the summer of 1346 gathered together the army of knights
and fighting men, and good bowmen, upwards of 30,000 strong, which
shortly afterwards won for him the stricken field of Crecy against the
French army of four times the number. Amongst the 30,000 French who
lost their lives was the King of Bohemia, whose crest and motto--three
ostrich plumes and _Ich Dien_--the Prince of Wales afterwards adopted.
At Portsmouth, too, in somewhat later times were assembled the armies
of John of Gaunt and of Edward IV, both bound for the interminable
French wars of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.
Afterwards Henry VIII in 1545 used the ground as the site of the
huge depôt needed for the victualling and fitting out of the hundred
high-sterned, cumbersome ships with which he intended to sail and
attack the French coast.
The French, however, were already at sea, burning for revenge on
account of the English having taken and destroyed part of Boulogne,
and suddenly, in the July of 1545, with a boldness which it is not
easy for us to understand, the French sailed across Channel with a
fleet of considerable strength and lay to just off Brading for lack of
wind. King Henry VIII, who was at Portsmouth at the time, and had dined
aboard the _Mary Rose_ ere she set out with the rest of the fleet to
meet the enemy, was on Southsea Common an interested, if not alarmed,
spectator of the Frenchmen’s audacity.
But owing to lack of wind neither fleet became generally engaged, and
the affair, which might have been a naval battle, descended to the
level of a mere desultory fight between the French galleys and the
English ships which had succeeded in creeping out nearest the French
fleet ere the wind entirely dropped. The _Mary Rose_ was not one of
the ships near enough to take part in the engagement. She was manned,
so one authority asserts, with officers and seamen who had so good
an opinion of their own importance and skill that they considered
themselves “fitter to command than to obey.” The gun ports were opened,
the guns run out, and, by carelessness on account of the calm, the
latter were not properly secured. As the day wore on, however, a breeze
suddenly came, the ship heeled over to it, and in consequence the
windward tier of guns crashed across the deck, causing the ship to heel
still further over with the great additional weight. The lee ports were
suddenly dipped under water, the sea rushed in, and a few moments later
the great, unwieldy ship sank with 600 on board of her.
It is said that the watchword of the fleet on that memorable occasion
was “God Save the King,” and the pass words, “Long to reign over us.”
Some authorities assert that to these words may be traced the origin of
our National Anthem. How true this view may be it is not easy to say.
There have been other disasters near the same spot, too; notably
the loss of the _Royal George_, the 108-gun ship of Rear-Admiral
Kempenfeldt, which sank at Spithead on August 29, 1782, whilst heeled
over for the repair of a pipe. All hands were aboard to the number of
about 600 souls, including women and Jews. Also there was the sinking
of the _Newcastle_, which went down with her crew in 1703; the loss of
the _Edgar_ and 400 lives by the blowing up of her powder magazine in
1711; and that of 98-gun line-of-battle ship _Boyne_ from a similar
cause in 1795.
War always brought stirring times for Portsmouth, for though, perhaps,
the hum and bustle was not equal to that of to-day’s stress and hurry,
these things are, after all, comparative, and the seamen of “Bluff King
Hal’s” time worked probably with as good or better will than those of
our own in manœuvring the galleons and caravels, which must, as one
writer says, “have been fickle craft in all save a beam wind.”
Leland when he visited Portsmouth found it a place of great interest.
For one thing, he saw the old ship, _Henri Grace de Dieu_, in the dock,
which seems to have impressed him greatly. As he says, it was “one of
the biggest ships that has been made within the memory of man.” He
also saw the great iron cable which was used for blocking the harbour
entrance in times of feared attack. A similar contrivance to that
in common use, for example at Dartmouth, and Fowey, in those days.
Regarding the town itself Leland is not very enthusiastic, for he calls
it “bare, and little occupied in time of peace.” which presents a
striking contrast to what it was even in Nelson’s day, when “the great
activities incidental to a seagoing and naval nation were ceaselessly
going on.”
Southsea Castle, which owes its origin, as do so many other similar
fortresses along the south coast, to King Henry VIII, was already in
existence when Leland paid the place his visit. It was built about
1540, and in that time was probably accurately described by him as a
“ryghte goodlye and warlyke castill.” Here Leland’s spelling varies
from that of his own when describing other castles. But spelling in
those days was often not an author’s strong point. The castle, to which
Henry paid several visits, seems to have served its purpose for about a
century after its erection, as it was immune from attack; but in 1626
it fell a partial victim to fire and had to be rebuilt.
The most stirring period of its history is that of the Civil War, when
Colonel Goring was supposed to be holding the town for King Charles.
Its armament for those days was fairly strong, consisting as it did of
a dozen 12-pounders and other smaller pieces, besides a good supply of
“hand guns, pikes, swords and other weapons of offense.” The Governor
was a Captain Chaloner, who, on the night when the Parliamentarians
came to attack it, had spent the evening in the town carousing with
Colonel Goring and returned to his post the worse for drink, and had
to be awakened out of sleep on the approach of Parliamentarians to the
attack. He promptly made the best terms for himself that he could, and
even went the length of drinking confusion to the King. Gallant Colonel
Goring made an attempt to retake the place, but meantime it had been
strongly garrisoned and so successfully resisted the Royalist attack.
The capture of the castle sealed the fate of the town, which had been
besieged for a month.
For a second time in its history, rather more than a century later, the
danger was to come from within. In the year 1759 some soldiers were
filling cartridges by the aid, it is supposed, of a “naked light,” when
the open powder barrels exploded, with the result that the castle was
almost destroyed. It was, however, once more rebuilt and afterwards was
used as a prison. At the time of the dreaded Napoleonic invasion the
Government of the day, realizing the importance of the place from a
strategical point of view, made several additions, and strengthened it
materially, amongst other things fortifying the ramparts. Nowadays it
is not possible to speak very authoritatively of its strength; but its
usefulness has since the beginning of the nineteenth century been from
time to time assured by additional armament and works.
The records of Portsmouth and its Harbour have not always been
creditable. There have been mutinies, treasonable firing of the
dockyard, and even assassinations in its streets, stirring the
inhabitants to the core, and leading at the time to much excitement and
gossip.
The most tragic event in the town’s history was the assassination of
the Duke of Buckingham whilst he was at Portsmouth engaged in gathering
together a second force for the relief of La Rochelle, then besieged by
Cardinal Richelieu.
The house in High Street in which the Duke was fatally stabbed by the
fanatic, John Felton, on August 23, 1628, although much altered, is
still standing. One thing should be noted. The house was never (as has
been frequently stated) an inn named “Ye Spotted Dog,” but a private
residence, at that time owned by a Captain Mason, then Governor of
Southsea Castle, who afterwards became famous as the founder of the
town of Portsmouth, New Hampshire, U.S.A. The assassin, who struck down
the King’s favourite after the Duke had become unpopular on account of
his arrogance and two unsuccessful wars undertaken at his instigation,
was a lieutenant in a foot regiment. It is supposed that, being
overlooked for promotion and arrears of pay due to him, somewhat preyed
upon and may even have unhinged his mind. Be it as it may, on a fine
August morning he gained entrance to the Duke’s temporary residence,
and, finding him standing in the hall, as he was about to start to
visit the King at Southwick, he stabbed him. So swift and silent was
the blow that for some moments no one recognized the murderer. “Then
amid great confusion, and the piercing shrieks of the Duchess and her
maid, Felton stepped forward and acknowledged the crime.”
It was with difficulty that he was saved from immediate execution, but
the reprieve was not for long. He was, however, for the time protected
and taken to London for trial. He was executed at Tyburn on November
26 in the same year, and his dead body was exhibited as a warning on
Southsea Beach. The site of the gibbet where Felton hung rotting in
chains is near Clarence Pier.
He must have been a man of resource and some considerable daring, for
when he was promised the rack by the Earl of Dorset if he did not
disclose the names of his supposed accomplices, he successfully put an
end to the possibility of his being racked by declaring that if put to
the torture the first name he would mention would be that of the Earl
of Dorset himself!
Viewed in the light of the present day, another crime, though a
judicial one, committed at Portsmouth was the execution of Admiral Byng
“for not having done his utmost to take, seize and destroy the ships
of the enemy” during an engagement with the French off Minorca on May
20, 1756. Latter day historians appear agreed that at most his was
an error of judgement; but in those times the nation generally was
subject to what modern writers term “nerves,” and just then popular
feeling would scarcely brook the news, let alone the fact, of a defeat
or a drawn battle. Be that as it may, the Admiral was brought to trial,
condemned, and on a bleak March morning in 1757, “when the sea and sky
were grey as though in dudgeon at the crime,” he knelt blindfolded
upon the deck of the _Monarque_ at Spithead, and, after letting fall
his handkerchief, fell pierced by five bullets. He was less a criminal
than one of those periodic scapegoats sacrificed to veil the errors
of greater and more powerful men. Voltaire gives a cynical account of
the episode in his _Candide_, remarking, amongst other things, that if
Byng did not approach near enough the French, neither did they draw
near him, adding that in England it was thought advisable to shoot an
Admiral now and then to encourage the rest!
Less than twenty years later the dockyard had a narrow escape from
destruction by fire. In the year 1776 James Aitken, known as “Jack the
Painter,” set alight to one of the sheds, happily with little result
as regards damage done. Arson in those days, in fact until the middle
of the last century, was a capital crime, and Aitken was condemned and
duly hanged by being strung up to the masthead of the _Arethusa_ sixty
feet in the air, and afterwards was hung in chains near the mouth of
the harbour. A lurid sidelight upon the doings and morals of those
times is afforded by the circumstance that the skeleton was ultimately
stolen by some sailors and pledged in satisfaction on a drink bill at
one of the Gosport inns. “Truly,” says a somewhat censorious writer of
the period, “these sailormen being neither better nor worse than the
soldier men neither fear God nor man.”
As might be expected, Portsmouth has not in the past been entirely free
from spies and traitors during war time; but, as a rule, these have had
but short shrift when discovered. Perhaps one of the most notable of
traitors who happened to be caught was one David Pyrie, at the time
employed as a clerk in the Navy Office. He was found to have disclosed
information regarding the naval preparations and movements of the fleet
to the French Government in 1782 during the Napoleonic wars. Upon
trial, which took place in the summer of that year, he was condemned
to what must nowadays strike one as a barbarous sentence, namely, “to
be hanged by the neck, but not until he was dead; that he should then
be cut down, his bowels taken out and burned before his face; and that
his head should then be taken off, his body cut into four quarters,
and (this is a grim touch of unconscious humour!) to be placed at the
disposal of his Majesty the King.” Southsea was the spot selected for
the carrying out of this terrible sentence. “There were,” we are told,
“over much people present to see the traitor die, so that many pressed
against the others to their hurt.”
There are two outstanding and arresting things above all others in the
Harbour--they are the _Victory_ and the dockyard. In the former we have
enshrined noble memories of the greatest of all Britain’s sea kings,
and of deeds the lustre of which time cannot tarnish whilst there
dwells in the hearts of men a love of country and of courage nobly
shown; in the latter we have almost all the modern as well as much of
the ancient interests of Portsmouth encompassed.
Men, whilst talking eloquently of the might of modern machinery, of
speed, of tonnage, of submarines, of destroyers, of _Dreadnoughts_ and
of the devastating hail of bullets which the modern battleship and
cruiser can discharge, yet look across at the _Victory_, that survival
of the most brilliant episode in our naval history, with loving eyes.
And, as one lies at anchor in sight of the old ship, whose decks have
run blood for England’s sake, whose ports have belched fire as she
weathered the battle, and whose sides have sung the music of salt water
as she drove through it, amid the forest of masts, and in sight of the
spires and towers and giant cranes of this great naval port, memories
crowd upon one of the great deeds done in the past, and of their
significance. The men who may in the future serve to keep England great
will not probably, after all, accomplish more than those through whose
courage, resource and skill she became so.
A detailed description of the dockyard is beyond the scope of the
present volume; but its existence cannot be entirely overlooked. It is
not difficult to “get over”--some, and we are inclined to agree with
them, assert it is far too easy--but after all one is only shown what
it is good for the stranger to see; unless, indeed, one’s patriotism
and respectability (as was ours) is vouched for by some high official;
but when once inside the evidence of activity and of naval greatness is
almost appalling.
Within a comparatively small area one finds gathered together
battleships of all types of the last twenty years or so--smart
new cruisers; long, low torpedo boats; and the bigger destroyers,
wicked-looking in their neutral-tinted slaty-greyness, by scores; huge
travelling cranes and shears rearing their clustered beams heavenwards,
and capable, some of them, of lifting 100 tons as easily as a man
could a fourteen-pound shot; Nasmyth hammers, Titanesque instruments
which, whilst beating iron plates flat and thin as easily as a smith
moulds a horseshoe, can yet close upon a watchglass without cracking
it. Amid all these gigantic and impressive instruments of destruction
and construction one is able to feel how insignificant an atom man, the
originator of all these things, often is in comparison with his own
handiwork.
[Illustration: PORTSMOUTH. ENTRANCE TO HARBOUR]
Then there is generally a terrible object-lesson of the destructive
powers of modern guns and gunnery in some out-of-date battleship,
which, as a target, has been subjected to a hail of projectiles.
Riddled and rent asunder almost as though her sides were of
cardboard instead of foot-thick steel plates, battered out of semblance
of anything resembling a ship, one is made to feel in some measure what
the horrors of a modern naval battle would be. One can scarcely believe
that within the few short minutes in which the poor maimed craft was
exposed to the hail of shot and shell, such destruction could have been
wrought. Certainly one is made to realize that between her decks, which
in real warfare would have held seven or eight hundred men, no living
creature could have existed long.
Then in the construction yards one catches glimpses of battleships
coming into being; and in the dry docks--the first of which owes its
existence to the initiative of Henry VIII in 1495, and was in constant
use for many years--one finds all sorts and conditions of ships
undergoing repairs. In “Anchor Lane” one has another object-lesson in
what is practically a street composed of anchors ready for any demand
or contingency. Many things have changed; but the anchor and the block,
though the size and pattern of the former have from time to time been
modified, remain, we are told, practically the same as a century or
more ago. The navy blocks--which are made of elm after “pickling” in
salt-water mud for at least two years--are made in precisely the same
way as when a century ago the elder Brunel invented and introduced
special machinery for their manufacture.
The Gun Wharf never fails to interest the visitor, be he a sailorman or
civilian. Here stacks, or “parks,” of guns of various sizes, but mostly
big, are to be seen, forming, as a visitor once not inaptly remarked,
“an object-lesson concerning the wastefulness of progress,” for
comparatively few of the hundreds of weapons there gathered together
for the scrap-heap have been discarded because of any flaw or other
fault, but merely because they have become outclassed or out-of-date.
In connexion with the Gun Wharf are the buildings containing the vast
supplies of arms, from which at a moment’s notice 40,000 or 50,000 men
could be equipped.
A large volume would be required to deal adequately with all the many
interesting features of the dockyard and its life; but as one watches
the men at work, the seamen getting stores aboard, or fitting out, one
cannot but feel that in their tireless and swift activity there is
still that spirit animating the men of all grades which from Armada
times have served to make them the best seamen afloat. Each century,
from the closing years of the sixteenth, has brought its wonderful
record of work done within the dockyard walls, just as each age has
done what was at the time required of it swiftly and well. In the
eighteenth century the vast number of sixty-six huge line-of-battle
and other war ships were launched from the slips, amongst them the _St
George_, _Prince of Wales_, _Princess Royal_, and famous _Ramillies_,
all of ninety-eight guns, with the leviathan _Britannia_ of one
hundred; and in the succeeding century this output was more than
doubled.
From Portsmouth Dockyard, too, went afloat the first paddle boat, the
_Hermes_, and out of it from Henry VIII’s reign onwards have gone
galleons, line-of-battle ships, ironclads innumerable, flying “the
meteor flag of England,” to earn immortality and the crown of glory
which attaches to brave deeds done and daring acts accomplished.
Amid the modern bustle and life of Portsmouth town there yet, happily,
remain for those who care for such things some memorials of the
glorious past. The old Sally Port is one of these places. There,
surely, if in any place in the town, ghosts must walk, where once so
many famous men, and those destined to become famous, embarked for
enterprises which but too often proved the truth of the Gray’s saying,
“The path of glory leads but to the grave.” The tablet affixed to this
old gateway tells its history better than any eloquence. It reads,
“From this place naval heroes innumerable have embarked to fight their
country’s battles.”
In the High Street stands not only St Thomas’ Church with its imposing
memorial to the murdered Duke of Buckingham in the south chancel, and
the house where the Duke was assassinated, but also the George Hotel
at which Nelson spent his last hours before setting out on the cruise
which ended in death and the victory of Trafalgar. Here he breakfasted
on September 14, 1805.
At any rate, at this time, as a contemporary writer says, “He was
physically of a frail and unheroic build, being slight, sickly-looking,
and weak. Moreover, ere he set forth on his last glorious voyage,
dysentery and fever had already shattered his frame so much that a far
less wound than he was destined to suffer would as likely as not have
proved fatal.... He had a hacking cough, but there was that in his
eye--fire and the unquenchable glint of genius--which, with his high
and noble courage, made him yet a hero and a born leader of men and
deviser of great affairs.”
In Broad Street stands the Blue Posts Inn. Not, alas! the immortal
hostelry of Marryat’s _Peter Simple_ and of innumerable other sea
stories since his day, but a bastard growth which sprang up after
the old inn was destroyed by fire in 1870. The old rhyme, which was
scratched on one of the window panes,
This is the Blue Postesses,
Where the midshipmen leave their chestesses,
Call for tea and toastesses,
And, alas! forget to pay for their breakfastesses.
must, we think, in its day have been one of the most quoted of all
poetic efforts.
The famous Star and Garter inn is, fortunately, still standing hard
by the Point or Floating Bridge. Here, in the cosy bar parlour, which
seems redolent of other days, one can sit and smoke at the same
table round which Nelson, Howe, Rodney, and other “old sea dogs,”
used to foregather, gossiping, possibly discussing plans of campaign,
and smoking old-time churchwardens, which had the great advantage of
smoking cool and keeping the smoke out of their eyes. Among the many
other famous visitors of the past were Louis Philippe on his flight
into exile, Sir John Franklin and King William the Fourth, “the Sailor
King,” who when Prince of Wales often occupied a bedroom which is still
shown. In the coffee room is a curious survival, a huge cupboard, or
secret chamber, measuring about 10 ft. by 6 ft. There is nowadays no
door to this room, which tradition asserts was a hiding-place from the
pressgang, or possibly (which seems even more likely) was a “hole”
used by smugglers. The Star and Garter remains a fine relic of old
Portsmouth, and one of the most interesting survivals of former days.
There are, however, not a few others which space will not allow our
mentioning in detail, amongst them Lord Howe’s house in Highbury Street
and the little shop of John Pounds, the originator of the Ragged
Schools; but at least a little more than a passing mention is claimed
by the birthplace of Charles Dickens in Commercial Road. The future
novelist, however, did not live here long, as his father, a Pay Clerk
in the Navy, was thrown out of employment at the time of a wholesale
reduction of the staff. In consequence the family, fallen upon evil
times, removed first to Chatham and then to London, where, as all the
world knows, Charles earned a few shillings a week by pasting labels on
blacking bottles.
The most interesting ecclesiastical building in Portsmouth, at least
to seafarers, is the Garrison Church, which was once the Domus Dei,
or Hospital of St Nicolas, the patron saint of seamen. It is one of
the few survivals of the ancient hospitals, once so numerous, at which
all who came to them could reckon upon receiving hospitality and
assistance. Founded in the first years of the thirteenth century by
Peter des Roches, a Crusading Bishop of Winchester, it was afterwards
richly endowed by King John and his successors. At the Dissolution of
the religious houses its revenues were worth, in the money of to-day,
upwards of £1,000 per annum; but with its suppression the charity as
well as the buildings themselves suffered ruin. The church itself was
for a time used as a storehouse, and although in the following reign
Queen Elizabeth did something to repair the buildings the attempt was
not very extensive. In Stuart times, however, the Deputy Governor of
the town lived here with his suite, and it was in this house Catherine
of Braganza--who landed on her coming to England to marry Charles II in
1662 at the old Sally Port--lodged. And in the Domus Dei the private
celebration of their marriage took place, followed a few hours later by
a public celebration in the Governor’s house. The record is kept in the
archives of St Thomas’s Church. The church of Domus Dei contains many
deeply interesting memorials and articles of ecclesiastical furniture.
The fine groined roof dates from the thirteenth century and is a part
of the original building.
To the Domus Dei, it is interesting to note, some of the captured and
sick Spaniards out of the Armada ships, as well as some of Drake’s
wounded seamen, were brought, this being the last occasion on which the
building was used for its original purpose.
Around Portsmouth itself are, it is needless to say, many picturesque
and interesting places, but to most seafarers, because of its connexion
with the Napoleonic naval wars and picturesque situation at the head of
the harbour, Porchester Castle will make most appeal.
Long before Portsmouth had any existence Porchester was a Roman
and Saxon fortress under the name of Caer Peris. In the days when
Roman galleys made their way up the tortuous channels of the harbour
Porchester was their objective, and it is here that “a strong camp
such as is familiar in many parts of the country was formed.” In the
name Porchester many authorities trace the fact that before the tidal
currents of the Solent had silted up the channel and the beach on which
it stood, it was a port in the true sense of the word, and was so
distinguished from the other “chesters” of Wessex by its prefix. There
is a legendary story concerning the village of Porchester that it was
in Saxon times one of the twenty-eight chief cities of Britain, then
known as Caer Peris, which was built by a son of Belin, named Gurgant,
who lived about 375 B.C., and that it was here that Vespasian landed on
invading the country to make war on the Belgae.
[Illustration: FAREHAM]
The site of the castle itself, which stands on the eastern side of
the tongue of land, is large, the huge quadrangle within which it
is contained occupying nearly nine acres, and the view of it as one
approaches it up the harbour is impressive and singularly picturesque.
The Great Tower or Keep standing at the north-west corner is the oldest
remaining portion of the original building, and dates from Saxon times.
Most of the buildings are nowadays in a ruinous state, but there are
several floors in the Great Tower which are still in fair repair, and
can be visited. These were provided for the accommodation of the host
of prisoners incarcerated here during the French wars, for whom room
could not be found on board the prison hulks in the harbour. The life
of these captives and their occupations is told most interestingly
in Sir Walter Besant’s story, _The Holy Rose_. How numerous the
unfortunates were and how inadequate the accommodation as regards
sanitation, light, air, and room may be gathered from _The General
History of Hampshire_, which states, “At one time during the great
war there was a multitude of nearly five thousand prisoners cooped up
within the walls of Porchester Castle,” and that then and in 1761,
when there were numerous French and Spanish prisoners of war confined
there, “the old building suffered much from pulling down temporary
structures put up for their use, as well as breaches made in the walls
by prisoners who escaped from their confinement.”
During the Napoleonic wars it is stated that a total of no less than
8,000 prisoners of war were incarcerated at Porchester Castle, where
they languished until they died, were exchanged, or were released at
the end of hostilities. To occupy time, which must have hung heavily
on the hands of most--only a comparatively small number being provided
with employment either in the grounds of the castle as gardeners, or as
servitors on their comrades--many made toys, which they sold when they
could to visitors and others, whose curiosity had drawn them hither,
for the purpose of supplying themselves with additional rations and
tobacco. Some of the ingenious articles so fashioned out of wood, or
sometimes carved out of the bones of the prisoners’ food, are preserved
in the museum at Portsmouth and in the curio cupboards of houses in the
district. In the middle of the last century ships, carts, boats and
animals so carved could occasionally be picked up in the cottages at
Porchester and the neighbouring towns and villages of Fareham, Cosham,
Wallington, and Wymering.
At the conclusion of peace at Paris, in June, 1817, the last of the
prisoners departed, and the castle was for a time partially used for
barracks, but soon was abandoned to the fate which overtakes all
disused buildings, decay and ruin. Nowadays it has little of interest
save the memories of former times when Kings (notably King John)
frequently visited it, and when its cellars of wine were famous. In its
somewhat scanty records occur some curious entries, such as “Paid to
Peter de Roche, Bishop of Winchester, in 1220, 100s. towards the cost
of fortifying the castle.”
And another, “On June 12, 1205, the Constable of Porchester was ordered
to supply a ship, and on June 23rd the villeins of Clere Episcopi, with
wine.”
It would also appear from these old records that the castle was chiefly
used as a Royal storehouse, for we find an order, dated February 6,
1227, for the Constable “to let one Nicholas, of the King’s chamber,
have and take to London for the king’s use fifteen hundred pounds of
wax kept in the castle.”
In the middle of the last century--though it may scarcely be
credited--there was some idea of converting the castle into a hospital;
but the Commissioners appointed to report upon its suitability or
otherwise for the purpose discovered in the building, which was by that
time fallen into ruin, with the rooms badly ventilated and lighted,
possessing practically no drainage and no outbuildings, situated upon
a low, bleak spit of land and surrounded by miles of mud flats exposed
for long hours daily, and containing within its encompassing walls the
parish church and graveyard, few recommendations for the purpose in
view. The scheme was, therefore, abandoned and the place given over
finally to decay.
The original Augustinian Priory, which was established in 1133 within
the outer walls of the castle, was removed to Southwick, Hants, two
decades later. Of the old foundations, and more especially of the
beautiful and magnificently-proportioned chapelries of famous William
of Wykeham, to whom Winchester Cathedral owes so much of its beauty,
scarcely a trace remains. It was at Southwick in 1445 that Henry VI’s
marriage was celebrated with Margaret of Anjou.
Porchester Castle Church, dedicated to St Mary (originally a portion of
the Priory founded by Henry I), standing in the south-west corner of
the quadrangle, has some good Norman work in it. It has been from time
to time somewhat unhappily restored, but possesses a most interesting
and notable Norman font. The church, as a whole, moreover, is very
picturesque.
Porchester Castle, as one leaves it, as we did at sunset on a
summer evening to thread our way down the tortuous channel back to
Portsmouth, forms a singularly impressive and romantic picture. The
ancient ivy-grown keep, the crumbling walls, the air of hoary antiquity
(alas! so ruinous), and the luminous evening haze which at such times
seems to envelop it form a picture which does not soon fade from the
mind, and conjures up memories of the stirring days of old when the
fortress was able to resist the fiercest attack which could be directed
against it.
Nowadays, as one unromantic individual said, “It could be demolished
in ten minutes under the fire of modern artillery”; but artists and
all for whom the past has an interest or significance will wish that
Porchester may be permitted to fall into gentlest ruin and slow decay
unmarked by violence, and softened each year by added beauty.
Although Portsmouth Harbour is so interesting and full of life, when
the time comes to up anchor and make one’s way out into the Solent
past the immortal _Victory_ and the host of other craft which seem to
be ever hanging in congested groups just outside or just inside the
Point and Point Battery, one is generally ready. Portsmouth may be an
exciting and interesting, but it cannot be called a restful, haven.
The Island seems to beckon one with its tree-crowned heights and wooded
bays and sunny beaches. It is never unpicturesque, even from the
distance of Southsea or Spithead; near by it is lovely. And never more
so than in the early hours of a summer morning when there is a fresh
breeze ruffling the water of the Solent and driving even a barge along
a good six or seven knots. If one lays a course for Sea View and drops
down the coast to Ryde, one can see something of its beauty as Spring
Vale, and then that legendary haunt of the fairies and “little people”
Puckspool, slide by. Not so many years ago there were those living near
Spring Vale who had seen the tiny folk upon moonlight nights (or said
they had, which is, of course, much the same thing) dancing on the edge
of the shore by the pool, or glassing their tiny, whimsical faces in
the water; and children used of summer days to lie in wait for the tiny
folk who never came; but now even children are much too sophisticated
to believe in these things; and so Puckspool is only a name.
Past the lovely woods of St Clare, and then Ryde comes into view. It
is a smart “towny” place in the summer, and the serried rows of houses
on the sea front and lower slopes of the rising ground gleam at one
whitely and uncompromisingly. The spire of All Saints forms a fine
landmark as well as an ornament to the town.
The town’s reputation with yachting folk rests chiefly, we fancy, upon
the fact that it is smart and fashionable, and is the headquarters of
the Royal Victoria Yacht Club. As for the anchorage, except in settled
and fine weather it has nothing to recommend it. Ryde is dear, as are
all the island places, and is more likely to be appreciated by the fair
weather sailor and the yachtsman who “does” it because he should than
by those for whom salt water, a good handy boat, and plenty of sea
room have attractions. It is not a place with much romantic history
attached to it, nor was it of great moment in the days when Portsmouth
was climbing upwards out of obscurity; indeed, until the commencement
of the eighteenth century, Ryde was little more than a collection of
fishermen’s huts. Its one excitement in past ages must have been the
descent of the French in the reign of Richard II, who burned what there
was to burn, as being one of those places where watch and ward were
kept for the defence of the island and the narrow seas.
The author of _Tom Jones_ wrote of it about the middle of the
eighteenth century as follows: “This pleasant village is situated on a
gentle ascent from the water, whence it affords a charming prospect.
Its soil is a gravel, which, associated with its declivity, preserves
it always so dry that immediately after the most violent rain a fine
lady may walk without wetting her silken shoes. The place ... is so
shaded with large and flourishing elms that its narrow lanes are a
natural grove or walk, which in the regularity of its plantation vies
with the power of art, and in its wanton exuberance greatly exceeds it.”
We have quoted Fielding because if one substitute town for village,
the description which he penned a century and a half ago is fairly
accurate as regards the general characteristics of Ryde of to-day. We
have, however, known it rain so that a lady could _not_ immediately
afterwards have ventured out for a walk “without wetting her silken (or
other) shoes.” But one must allow the famous novelist some latitude.
There are practically no buildings of any interest except All Saints’,
erected from designs by the late Sir Gilbert Scott, which, though a
modern church, is worth a visit. In the immediate vicinity, however,
a couple of miles or so westward stands Quarr Abbey, or what remains
of the ancient foundation, plus a rather unpicturesque farmhouse
built from the debris. There still stands, however, a huge barn,
said to be the ancient refectory. The Abbey is reputed to have been
the first Cistercian foundation in England, although at least one
other claims that distinction. Quarr, its name was derived from the
quarries in the immediate neighbourhood, was established in 1132 by
Baldwyn de Redvers, who was afterwards made Earl of Devon, and given
lordship of the island. To fill the institution a party of Norman
monks of the Benedictine Order were brought over from Savigny, but
a few years later it was given over to the Cistercians. De Redvers
was a generous founder, for to the Abbey, which he had dedicated to
the Holy Virgin, he gave “broad lands,” and, his good example being
followed by his successors, at last the Abbot of Quarr became one of
the great personages of the Island, and was twice Warden of the Wight.
The chapel, which was from all accounts “a richly architectured and
elegant fane,” contained some fine and beautiful tombs. Notably those
of the founder and his wife, William de Vernon, in his day a Lord of
the Island, who bequeathed, what was in those times, the enormous sum
of £330 for the erection of “stately and adequate memorial to himself.”
Here, too, was buried the Princess Cecilia Plantagenet, daughter of
Edward IV, who was a beauty of her age, and after the marriage of her
sister Elizabeth to Henry VII became Lady Welles. The second husband
of this unconventional Princess was a commoner, one Master Thomas Kyme
or Kyne, to whom she is stated to have borne two children. After her
second marriage she retired to Standen, and lived there for a period of
three years (1504-7), dying at the age of thirty-eight.
The memorials of all these were defaced or utterly destroyed at the
time of the suppression of the religious houses.
The Abbey was fully fortified in the reign of Edward III by Royal
licence, as it had been attacked in a previous reign by the French
pirates who made periodical descents upon our coasts, and was on
account of its great wealth “in treasure as well as lands” liable to
future attack. The stout stone wall which was built to encircle it
enclosed an area of no less than forty acres. Fragments of the sea
gate, which had a portcullis, and the wall can still be traced; as may
also some of the foundations of the Abbey itself which have of recent
years been excavated.
[Illustration: COWES. SUMMER]
On the suppression of the monastic institutions by Henry VIII, Quarr
passed by purchase into the possession of two brothers by the name
of Mills, belonging to Southampton, who promptly set to work to pull
down the Abbey, Church, and other monastic buildings. In the reign of
James I, Sir Thomas Fleming, Lord Chief Justice of England, purchased
the estate from descendants of the Mills family. So great was the
destruction wrought by the vandalistic tendencies of the latter, that
we are told “even in the reign of Charles I there was little more
remaining to be seen of this great Abbey and its dependent buildings
than at the present day.”
Hard by the Abbey grounds is a delightful woodland spot known as
Eleanor’s Grove, where tradition asserts the Queen of Henry II, who was
a prisoner in the Abbey, lies buried in a golden coffin, which, though
often sought for, has never yet been discovered!
Onward from Quarr along the coast to Cowes one passes Fishbourne,
and wood-shaded Wootton Creek. One must only linger to point out
the pretty village of Wootton Bridge at the head of the creek, with
its feet almost in the water, and the fine sweep of Arreton Down as
a background. Formerly this was a busy spot, and in the good old
smuggling days many a cargo, which had escaped capture in the open
Channel or in Christchurch Bay and the Solent, was silently landed on
the well-wooded shores of Wootton.
Cowes has not inaptly been called “the Mecca of yachtsmen,” and in the
season at one time or another, to use a common phrase, “everybody who
is anybody” will generally be found in its streets, or on the yachts
in Cowes Roads. Along from Wootton Creek the shore is picturesque,
and as one passes Norris Castle (with the twin towers of Osborne in
the background) and rounds Old Castle Point pretty West Cowes and the
ivy-mantled Royal Yacht Squadron Club House come suddenly into view.
Cowes is a distinctly picturesque and interesting-looking place from
the water; has a much greater air of antiquity than its more bustling
rival Ryde; and with the Medina cutting the town in half has the real
air of a port.
The water, too, seems along this little piece of island coast to melt
into the land, so frequently is the shore shaded and beautiful with
leafy dells, and giant trees waving their branches skyward in the
ambient air of summer. Across the Solent, though distant, there is
the not less lovely prospect of the Hampshire highlands, and the many
tinted stretches of green and grey-green woodlands which mark the New
Forest on the horizon.
It is not easy to get a snug berth at any time during the summer months
at Cowes. During “the week” late comers will have to put up with what
they can get, or go elsewhere; or anchor far outside the charmed circle
of beautiful craft, which makes Cowes Roads during Regatta week a
unique water pageant, and a thing to be remembered.
If one is going to spend a week at Cowes it is delightful to do so
in the river somewhere off the Folly Inn on the Eastern side of the
Medina; or a little further up off Roche’s or the old Mill. One is out
of the way of harm (and there is plenty of that going round in the
river when the tide makes out like a mill race) and one is yet not too
far out of the way. Roche’s Mills have not always been as peaceful as
to-day. Here, as at Porchester and elsewhere, were confined numerous
French prisoners of war, though how the buildings were adapted for the
purpose of a gaol it is a puzzle to imagine.
Cowes, notwithstanding its appearance of, shall we say, possible
antiquity, is not an “old, ancient place,” such as many of the more
western and more eastern seaports along the coast. It may be said to
date its origin as a town from the year 1540, when Henry VIII erected,
out of the materials of Beaulieu Abbey across the water on the skirts
of the forest, one of the numerous protective castles which he dotted
along the south coast. The growth of the place, however, must have been
slow, as more than a century later, in the reign of Charles I, we are
told that the town consisted of but some half score of small houses.
The usefulness and possibilities of its harbour were (if we may accept
the evidence of another authority) long before this discovered, so that
in the early years of the seventeenth century “sometimes as many as
two or three hundred vessels of all kinds and sizes were to be seen at
anchor off it at one and the same time.”
Cowes was destined to become a shipbuilding port of some consequence in
the days just prior to and during the Napoleonic Wars. From the Cowes
yards, amongst other ships too numerous to mention, were launched the
_Repulse_ and _Veteran_, each carrying sixty-four guns, Nelson’s old
ship, the _Vanguard_, the _Cerberus_, thirty-two guns; the _Hero_, and
many another. In the year of Waterloo the first building yards of any
great consequence for pleasure craft were started by Messrs White, who
have, since those far off days, sent many a swift and successful yacht
afloat. The necessity for such a dock as the Medina, made in 1845,
measuring some 330 feet in length and 60 feet in width, will give an
idea of the importance of the shipbuilding industry of Cowes in the
past as well as the present.
But though, with the rise of yachting into popularity, Cowes may be
said to have rapidly come to the front as “a resort of fashion and
frivolity,” long ere this, about the middle of the eighteenth century,
it was attracting attention as a sea-bathing station, almost rivalling
Weymouth. A poet of sorts ventured to affirm--
No more to foreign baths shall Britons roam,
But plunge at Cowes, and find rich health at home.
And in the early years of the nineteenth century there were a good
many bathers amongst the aristocracy frequenting the place and
neighbourhood. Cowes, however, nowadays is scarcely a sea-bathing
resort of particular note.
It may be safely asserted that the town has seen more than its fair
share of Royal visitors. Of late years such visits have been mostly of
a pleasant character. It was not, however, always so. Charles I was one
of the exceptions. He landed at Cowes on September 22, 1647, and was
taken to Newport as a prisoner to be confined in Carisbrooke Castle.
And three years later his two children, the boy Duke of Gloucester and
the unfortunate young Princess Elizabeth, also landed here bound for
a like destination and imprisonment. Most of the members of the Royal
House of Stuart came to Cowes at one time or another; sometimes on
private visits, at others on public functions, as when Prince Charles
(afterwards Charles I) honoured a military review by his presence in
1618. Henry VIII was also at Cowes on more than one occasion. And of
course coming down to more recent times the late Queen Victoria, her
children, and the present King and Queen have been at various times
frequent visitors.
Of buildings of interest and note there are few in Cowes. Not only from
its position but also from its connexion with much of the yachting
history of the town Royal Yacht Squadron Castle, the Club House of
the premier Yacht Club of the world, attracts most notice. Founded in
1812, it was not, however, until 1815 that the Club may be said really
to have been established, when a meeting of the then members was held
at the Thatched House Tavern (an ancient hostelry) standing in St
James’s Street, with Lord Grantham in the chair, and many distinguished
and noble members present to support him. This meeting appears to
have consolidated the Club, and to have infused new life into it. It
had several homes at Cowes ere its present one; meeting early in its
history in the Medina Hotel, and later on at the Gloucester Hotel.
In 1856 its present Club House was acquired from the Marquess of
Conyngham, who gave up to the Club his lease of the property, which he
held from the Crown. The old Fort was at once rebuilt and considerably
enlarged; two of the ancient guns being preserved and ultimately placed
in the Club grounds.
No one who knows the Club house can fail to admit the charm of its
situation, with its fine outlook east and west and across the Solent,
and its well-kept and delightful lawns, shaded and backed by the
historic elm trees. The prospect from the platform or terrace is indeed
a wide one, including within its range the Motherbank, off Ryde, and
the Spithead forts to the eastward; with Calshot Castle, the Portsdown
Hills, and Southampton Water to the North; and the entry to Beaulieu
River and Lymington westward.
The yachts belonging to the Squadron (doubtless because of the wealth
of the members) have always been distinguished for size. And even
in the early days of the Club (as can be seen in the picture by W.
Huggins, painted in 1835) there were some large and powerful vessels
flying the Club burgee. The Earl of Yarborough’s (then Commodore)
_Falcon_, a full-rigged ship of 351 tons carrying twenty-two guns!; the
_Pearl_, of 130 tons; _Dolphin_, 217 tons; and the _Pantaloon_, the
Duke of Portland’s brig, being amongst the largest craft.
This was one of the most prosperous and interesting periods of the
Club’s history. Then into its racing arena came the famous _Arrow_ of
Mr T. Chamberlayne, which was so successful from year to year in all
the races for which she was entered that at last she was requested not
to compete! A distinction which has been conferred, we believe, upon no
other yacht.
In the year 1851 the Royal Yacht Squadron gave a cup to be raced for,
which the _America_, schooner, belonging to Mr J. C. Stevens, Commodore
of the New York Yacht Club, won. It is this cup, erroneously known
to Americans as the “Queen’s Cup,” and to English people generally
as the “_America_ Cup,” which has been the cause of such frequent
contests off Sandy Hook in the endeavour of various keen and patriotic
English yachtsmen to regain possession of the coveted trophy. Very
recently[C] the squadron consisted of 230 members, the fleet of 108
vessels, comprising 45 steam yachts, 10 steam (auxiliary) schooners, 28
schooners, 13 cutters, and 12 yawls, with a total tonnage of upwards of
20,400 tons.
[C] These figures must be taken as approximate. They vary
considerably from time to time.
Including in the past and present His Majesty’s yachts _Formosa_,
_Aline_, and _Britannia_, and such well-known boats as _Emerald_,
_Alarm_, _Egeria_, _Sunbeam_, _Czarina_, _Mirage_, and _Wanderer_, to
mention only a few.
The election of the German Emperor as a member, and his interest in
yacht racing, has on several occasions, when his boat has been over
here, added considerable interest to the Regatta week and races.
The history of the premier Yacht Club, in which His Majesty King
Edward VII has taken so great an interest, and of which in the past
more particularly he has been so active a member, may properly fill
a volume by itself. There is plenty of romance in the story; just as
the record of the Club may be said to be a history of English yachting
in miniature. It is the ambition of every wealthy yachtsman to belong
to the Squadron (comparatively few realize it) and beyond the _éclat_
which attaches to membership there are certain privileges which are
valuable from a monetary point of view. One is that of entering foreign
ports free of dues. A more sentimental privilege, shared by no other
Club, is that of flying the white, or St George’s ensign, which is
carried by vessels of the Royal Navy.
The old blockhouse or castle of Henry VIII, the present home of the
Club, had long ceased to be of strategic importance, and even in the
time of the Commonwealth had been chiefly used as a prison rather
than as a defensive work; but during the French war a small garrison
occupied it. The Restoration dramatist, William Davenant, the author
of amongst other plays “The Temple of Love,” acted at Whitehall on
Shrove Tuesday, 1634, and “The Wits,” his comic masterpiece, produced
at a private house in Blackfriars in 1633, wrote a portion of his
“Gondibert” whilst a prisoner in it.
Nowadays the uses of the castle and the character of its frequenters
are as far apart as the poles from those of long ago. Now in place
of the garrison of old, “fair ladies and gallant men” make the place
alive in summer with chatter, gossip, and laughter; and though naval
and military uniforms are occasionally seen within its precincts, the
sartorial attractions are rather the toilettes of the ladies from
the salons of Paquin, Redfern, Doucet and Marescho Soeurs than the
tailoring of naval and military outfitters. The frequenters of the
castle lawn during Regatta week form a crowd almost as cosmopolitan as
it is brilliant. As a fair American off a “Yankee” yacht once said,
after a London season, “It’s a sort of Hurlingham by the sea with a
dash of Buckingham Palace garden party thrown in to steady things.”
There is only one other building of any great antiquity in West Cowes,
the old Church of St Mary. It is, after all, however, not very ancient,
for it only dates back to the middle half of the seventeenth century;
but it has the distinction of being one of the four churches erected
during the Protectorship of Oliver Cromwell. Though built in 1653 it
had to wait for its consecration till after the Restoration.
The principal feature of the town of Cowes itself which remains in the
mind is the narrowness of its main street (which in reality is its sole
business thoroughfare of distinction), and the almost metropolitan
beauty and costliness of the goods displayed in some of its shop
windows. The High Street, however, is always fascinating during the
yachting season by reason of the crowd of well-dressed and famous
people who throng it; making it appear more like Bond Street in the
merry month of May than the rather mean and narrow thoroughfare it
actually is.
There is little to interest one at East Cowes, which is chiefly
given over to fine houses and villa residences. Whippingham Church
possesses attractions for most American visitors, and for those to whom
a pretty church with sentimental memories, rather than distinguished
architecture and antiquarian interest, appeals. Though originally one
of the oldest churches in the island, it has (from the time of Nash’s
vandalism) suffered much in the way of alterations, restorations so
called, and additions. So that nowadays little remains of the original
building or of antiquity.
Most yachting folk take a trip up the Medina to Newport, and historic
Carisbrooke. It is well worth doing, although there is nothing of
interest in Newport itself. But a description of the castle and its
engrossing historical story and associations does not come within the
scope of the present volume.
Few, save the “butterfly” type of visitor and yachtsmen, we fancy,
after all regret the time for departure from Cowes when it comes. The
town has little interest save its modern side of seafaring life, and
fashionable amusements. And in this circumstance presents a sharp
contrast to the fascinating and historical havens along the coast of
the mainland both eastward and westward of it.
Along the coast westward, past pretty Gurnard Bay beloved by those
who picnic, and Newtown haven, where, hidden away--much as is
Buckler’s Hard across the Solent in Beaulieu River--lies the decaying
Francheville, once an important harbour and town, rivalling in
prosperity and population Newport itself, and then Yarmouth comes in
sight almost at the extreme north-western corner of the Island.
It is a quaint, quiet, foreign-looking old place, lying low with a fine
sweep of hills for a background, where a day or two can be pleasantly
enough spent. In its past history one catches a glimpse of stirring
days and sea-roving life such as distinguished the many ports of
Devon and Cornwall in those far-off times when to go a-pirating was
to show one’s enterprise and patriotism, and exhibited as well sound
commercial instincts which would do credit to the average company
promoter of the twentieth century. Yarmouth still possesses some
standing as a port of embarkation and debarkation between the island
and the mainland. It was so distinguished in its more prosperous days,
and indeed as far back as the twelfth century, when it was incorporated
by Baldwyn de Redvers, Earl of Devon. It was very probably in those
remote times addicted to piracy, and that on a fairly extensive scale,
for the town appears to have earned the vengeance of the French on
several occasions. The latter were over at Yarmouth “much to the
towne’s hurt and loss, and the people’s affright,” in the year 1377,
when so many other seaports on the south-west coast suffered severely
from Norman and Breton marauders. The place on that occasion was burnt
almost to the ground and sacked. The inhabitants fleeing inland towards
Newport, to return later to find their homes destroyed, the best ships
in the harbour gone, and the smaller boats scuttled.
Once again, about a century and a half later, in 1524, a noted French
pirate named Claude D’Annebaut was descried approaching round Sconce
Point, and although some sort of resistance seems to have been offered
it was futile, for the bold sea rover landed his men, drove those of
the inhabitants he did not butcher out of the town, which latter he
promptly set about plundering and burning. He appears to have saved
the lives of “some of the properest maids, and wives not too long
wedded for his own good pleasure and that of the pirates with him,”
in addition to which outrage D’Annebaut, who to do him justice was a
“proper rogue and no respecter of God nor man,” burned down the church,
took the altar vessels, and saw that nothing of portable value was left
for the people of Yarmouth.
It was then that the great castle builder, Henry VIII, came to the
rescue, and in 1539 a blockhouse or round tower was built on the site
of the destroyed church, and in it were mounted “a sufficiency of great
cannon to keep at bay those bloody pyrates the French.” Of whatever
size the “great cannons” may have been, they appear to have served
their intended purpose most successfully, for although the French on
several other subsequent occasions were seen off the coast at the back
of the island and in the jaws of the Solent, they did not further
trouble Yarmouth.
So, on its peaceful way, went the little town, which one may imagine
was very much what it is at the present time, consisting of a group of
a few score of houses planted on the low-lying land at the mouth of
the Yar. Notwithstanding the fact that few of the houses are of any
great age, if one except the interesting George Inn, which was once
the residence of Sir Robert Holmes, and had the honour of sheltering
Charles II on his visit to the town in 1671, Yarmouth has that old-time
air of sleepy indifference to modern ways and modern things which is
not the least part of many an old-time seaport’s charm. Except in the
summer, when hordes of excursionists from Lymington and Bournemouth
invade its old-world street, the town appears to go to sleep, and dream
of the time when some bold smuggler of the Hampshire coast used to run
his cargoes here, and when tubs and bales on which no duty had been
paid formed the contents of many an honest and upstanding man’s cellar.
Only a few years ago, indeed, the pulling down of one of the old houses
was frequently the means of bringing to light a forgotten or hidden
“cache” in which tubs and bales of lace had long lain concealed.
[Illustration: YARMOUTH, I.O.W.]
The town, notwithstanding the absence of buildings of note, has a
general picturesqueness; but the church is a seventeenth century
building, not even good of its style. In it, however, there is one fine
and interesting monument erected to the memory of Sir Robert Holmes,
Knight and Admiral, concerning whom there are very diverse opinions.
An Irishman by birth, Holmes was undoubtedly a born “ruffler,” who
appears to have commenced his career--which ultimately provided him
safely enough with money, honour and preferment--as a soldier of
fortune. He served with distinction under Prince Rupert and Charles I,
and also against the Dutch later, although one writer has referred to
him as “the cursed beginner of the two Dutch wars.” He entered the Navy
some time after the Restoration and gained honour and success. It is
his capture of a Dutch treasure ship from the Guinea coast in 1663 or
1664 to which the poet Dryden refers in his _Annus Mirabilis_;
Holmes, the Achates of the General’s fight,
Who first bewitched our eyes with Guinea gold.
The gold taken out of this vessel being minted into coins to which was
given the name guinea. The first bore the image of an elephant upon
them, having been made, as stated, of African gold.
There seems to have been no end to Holmes’ naval activity, for in the
following year he captured New Amsterdam from the Dutch, giving it the
name by which it has ever since been known, New York, out of compliment
to the then Lord High Admiral of the English Fleet, James, Duke of
York. Some of his after exploits have “a strange though admirable
flavour of piracy about them.” Notably his expedition on the coast of
Holland, when he burned a number of villages, destroyed two men of war,
and captured upwards of a hundred and twenty merchantmen.
One of the most romantic episodes of his life was when he acted as
second to the Duke of Buckingham in the famous duel in which he killed
his opponent the Duke of Shrewsbury. The story goes that the Countess
of Shrewsbury came disguised as a page to witness the encounter, in
which she had a double interest, one of the combatants being her
husband, the other her lover.
Ultimately bold Sir Robert settled down in 1667 to a shore life as
Governor of the Wight, which office he held until his death in 1692.
Even his monument enshrines an adventure, as characteristic, one would
imagine, as any in which he was ever engaged. Underneath the whole
affair, at any rate, lurks a spice of the Irish wit which is said to
have distinguished him, and to have made him an agreeable opponent and
even victor. Holmes upon capturing a French vessel, found on board of
it, so the story goes, an unfinished statue in marble, intended to be
completed as one of Louis XIV of France, and to be then placed in the
palace at Versailles. The sculptor who was engaged to carry out the
work happened to be on board the ship, and it occurred to the ingenious
Sir Robert that here was an excellent chance of obtaining a monument
of himself at a low cost. So he compelled the artist to complete the
figure as a portrait statue of himself, and then had it placed in the
church of the town for which, notwithstanding his overbearing ways and
erratic methods, he had done so much.
If the likeness is a good one--and there seems reason to believe it
is--it is not difficult to understand the character of the man it
represents. In the strong featured, hard, and masterful face one easily
traces evidence of the qualities which made him a terror to the Dutch,
and one of the most successful of the legalised sea-rovers of the last
half of the seventeenth century. In the life story of Sir Robert Holmes
there is, indeed, enough of romance and adventure to make a shelf of
novels of the type of _Westward Ho!_ were there but a new Kingsley to
use the material.
And as one stands out of the little harbour, on one’s way further
west, long after the pleasant little town, low-lying but picturesque,
has faded out of sight astern, it is the memory of this old sea dog,
truculent no doubt, but an Englishman to the backbone, that remains
in the mind, “routing the King’s enemies, and carrying fire and sword
instead of merchandise, along the coasts of Holland and through the
Channel, and across the wide Atlantic to the New World.”